Can I VoIP? Should I VoIP?

SpecialK — Wed, 29 Jun 2005 19:07:13 -0800

What do I need for enterprise VoIP, and do you think the technology's mature enough? I'm about to sign to get a T-1 dragged into my new office. We're at the point where my little IT company is overloading our DSL line continuously, and we can't even get that good of a DSL line at the new location.

To keep costs reasonable, I can either choose to get a fractional T-1 with four voice trunks running into an asterisk box (VOiP SIP phones in the office, of course, but that's just LAN) and a fractional T-1 for data, or I can get a VOiP provider and get a full T-1, just routing phone over it via VOip.

One of the sales reps I talked to said that if I was going to do VOiP to the world, I'd probably want to get a more robust router that could "split the packets" ... what was she talking about? She couldn't explain it to me satisfactorily in geek, and I don't know enough of the buzzwords to google it.

In a broader sense (because I have a couple of clients that are interested in this if I can pull it off myself...) what kind of considerations should I be looking at before doing a VoIP installation, either VOiP over intranet and trunk to world or VOiP to world, especially in the technical sense, and what are good resources to explore for easy bedtime reading?*

Also, in the general opinion, sense, could I get some comments from the peanut gallery on VOiP in general? Do you think it's mature enough?

* Note: Easy Bedtime Reading(tm) for me usually includes technical manuals and o'Reilly Bookshelf.

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Can I VoIP? Should I VoIP?